README.md

Node-Neo4j

This is a client library for accessing Neo4j, a graph database, from
Node.js. It uses Neo4j's REST API, and supports
Neo4j 1.5 through Neo4j 2.1.

(Note that new 2.0 features like labels and constraints are only accessible
through Cypher for now -- but Cypher is the recommended interface for Neo4j
anyway. This driver might change to wrap Cypher entirely.)

Usage

Node.js is asynchronous, which means this library is too: most functions take
callbacks and return immediately, with the callbacks being invoked when the
corresponding HTTP requests and responses finish.

Because async flow in Node.js can be quite tricky to handle, we
strongly recommend using a flow control tool or library to help.
Our personal favorite is Streamline.js, but other popular choices are
async,
Step,
Seq, TameJS and
IcedCoffeeScript.

Once you've gotten the basics down, skim through the full
API documentation to see what this library can do, and take a
look at @aseemk's node-neo4j-template app for a complete usage
example. (The models/User.js file in particular is the one that interacts
with this library.)

This library is officially stable at "v1", but "v2" will almost certainly have
breaking changes to support only Neo4j 2.0 and generally improve the API
(roadmap). You can be sheltered from these changes if you simply specify
your package.json dependency as e.g. 1.x or ^1.0 instead of *.

Development

You'll need a local installation of Neo4j (links),
and it should be running on the default port of 7474 (neo4j start).

To run the tests:

npm test

This library is written in CoffeeScript, using Streamline.js syntax.
The tests automatically compile the code on-the-fly, but you can also generate
compiled .js files from the source ._coffee files manually:

npm run build

This is in fact what's run each time this library is published to npm.
But please don't check the generated .js files in; to remove:

npm run clean

When compiled .js files exist, changes to the source ._coffee files will
not be picked up automatically; you'll need to rebuild.

If you npm link this module into another app (like node-neo4j-template)
and you want the code compiled on-the-fly during development, you can create
an index.js file under lib/ with the following: